Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) have become extremely popular in today's telecommunications industry. There is a continuing effort to make smaller LEDs, thus permitting the manufacture of more LEDs per semiconductor wafer. Obviously, the inclusion of more LEDs on a dingle semiconductor wafer results in a significant manufacturing cost reduction. A factor limiting the reduction in size of LEDs is the placement of electrical connections at specific locations on the LED. Such electrical connections are necessary to couple the LED to the package in which the LED will eventually be placed.
As is well known in the art, LEDs are often packaged in leadframes which permit the efficient connection of other electrical components to the LED, and assist in channeling light emitted by the LED through the use of a lens. Often times, the lens of the LED package is spherical in shape, and the package geometry is matched to the dimensions of the lens. For example, some LED packages include portions which are conical in shape to effectively receive and hold spherical lenses (see, for example, FIG. 9 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,987,711). However, conventional LED packages for receiving spherical lenses are expensive and difficult to produce using automated processes.
Thus, there is presently a need for an new LED package which is inexpensive to manufacture and easy to produce using automated processes.